Song and Dance
by PrescitedEntity
Summary: [PRDT  Ethan x Kira] Ethan is a gamer through and through, and he plays to win. At the national Pump It Up competition, he meets a rising starlet whose songs he'll be dancing to, and it's someone he knows rather well... Planned 3parter.


**Opening Ceremony**

Ethan is a master gamer – RPGs, shooters, fighters, adventures, puzzles, sims, sports – if it's a genre of gaming, he's out to master it. Like any good male human being, he's got a hell of a competitive side, but instead of showing it off in athletics like Conner – sweat is nasty, and sports are for masochists who for some insane reason like the feeling of lactic acid buildup – he displays his need for alpha male dominance in the world of MMOs and competitive gaming. On any given Saturday when he's not studying at his dream college and Hayley's alma mater of MIT after matriculating for his graduate studies, he can be found among peers in the Strategic Games Society, and if not there, at the Hobby Bunker with BattleGroup Boston.

Unfortunately, his love of gaming came at a price. After spending his undergrad years frivolously immersing himself in seas of junk food and all-night binges of gaming, he found himself a bit pudgy around the midsection. Ethan wouldn't usually give half a damn – sure, he wanted to be in shape, but he was content with his life, so he didn't see reason to live otherwise. However, he lost a bet over the stupidest thing – tetris! – because of a string of Z-blocks, and was literally dragged into a mall to play, of all games, Dance Dance Revolution.

If he could've turned beet red, he would've.

After the most embarrassing show of gaming in his life, he set down his foot – many times, as it was to be – and made his resolution. He would make himself the best dance player in Massachusetts, if not the whole USA, or die trying, possibly of dehydration, exhaustion, or various injuries.

And it served him well; the game, after all, was essentially an exercise regimen or sport tailored for nerds. Within a few months, he was in the best shape of his life as he practiced his basic maneuvers – handplants, slides, afronova spins, and so forth, just to add that extra flair of showing off. Ethan was going to be a champion, and he was going to do it with _style_.

It wasn't long before he discovered the World Pump Festival. It was everything he'd need to feed his ego – a competition in which he could claim bragging rights over not only the U.S., but internationally, and win a few thousand dollars and an all-expense paid vacation to Korea while he was at it? He was beyond there. Thus, like any true gamer, Ethan devoted days upon days to crafting his art, getting more bruises and sprains than he had in the same amount of time spent as a Power Ranger.

And now he was here, at the national competition where the team representing the United States at the WPF would be determined, competing with the best of the best, some veteran PIU players with a few years of competition victories under their belts, some as fresh as he was, many infernally good. The former Blue Ranger didn't do too well at Speed, unsurprisingly, and was decent but not spectacular under Pump rules, but he was a force to be reckoned with at Freestyle, and that would be his bracket of competition.

This year, a special guest was attending the U.S. national competition – a rising starlet that had contributed two songs to PIU, or so the flyer had proclaimed. It didn't concern him much; apparently, her songs had been kept under wraps for the new arcade machine release coinciding with the competition, not used in the World Pump Festival and only playable at this level for Freestylers during competition as improv stages in the preliminary, third, and final rounds to show just how comfortable each player was with the game.

Ethan plunked down on the chair reserved for him as he watched the opening ceremony of a sorts, listening only half-attentively as the announcer spewed some nonsense about the aforementioned singer and songwriter who'd been featured in PIU. Slumping further and further down, he'd just about fallen asleep when he saw out of the slit left by his eyelids a very oddly familiar blonde head, wearing very oddly familiar yellow-themed indie clothing...

"Let's give a 'pumped' welcome to Miss Kira Ford!"

The ex-Blue Dino Ranger liquidly slid off the chair, making a small heap of Ethan on the floor.

* * *

A/N: Why this? Because I'm basically a female, Asian Ethan, and there ain't enough of him out there – only two other fics with Kira (not actually a pairing I support, but it works for the story). But more importantly, because DDR and PIU helped me drop forty pounds, so this is my tribute of a sorts. Planned to be a short three-parter, but dunno if it's worth continuing. 


End file.
